India: India’s leading automotive site, Gaadi Web Pvt. Ltd today announced a partnership with the MIH Group.

Announcing the partnership, Vivek Pahwa, Founder of Gaadi said “This is a really exciting development for Gaadi. This partnership with one of the largest internet groups in the world is just what Gaadi needs to push itself to the next threshold in leadership. The team is really looking forward to establishing this business as a clear leader in this space, on all measures.”

Nikita Dhingra, M&A-Head for MIH Internet India, said “We are happy to welcome Gaadi Web Pvt. Ltd. to the MIH family. Gaadi.com has demonstrated early traction in terms of traffic and revenue in the auto vertical backed by an excellent team. We are excited about the potential of the online auto classifieds market in India. We see synergies between Gaadi.com and other MIH properties. MIH owns and operates several classifieds and e-commerce sites across the globe. In the automobile category MIH groups owns leading sites such as otomoto.pl in Poland and auto.mail.ru in Russia.”

The Gaadi business will continue to run as an independent entity, with Umang Kumar, co-founder, taking over as CEO of Gaadi.com. Vivek Pahwa will continue to be involved at a strategic level. Umang Kumar, said “We will leverage MIH’s global expertise in the internet and automobile classifieds space to grow the business. We are seeing growth in traffic and revenues, and we would look at pushing this growth to even higher levels with the partnership. The online auto sector as a whole grew by more than 70% last year, and solid business models are emerging both in the New Cars and Used Cars front.”

Umang Kumar is an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and previous to co-founding Gaadi.com worked at 9.9 Media and the ABP Group.